On Monday April 18th Airport Design Experience seminar started with the first session at the Rectorate of the University of Florence, with Prof. Richard De Neufville offering a lecture on the state of the art of Airport Terminal Design. The second session, aimed at the Industry was held in Rome on the subsequent day, paralleled by a third session dedicated to the students in the premises of the Department of Architecture of the Università degli Studi di Firenze.

The Airport Design Experience (ADE) seminar will be held in Florence and Rome between April and June 2016.

International experts and architects will focus and exchange ideas to provide a state of the art framework of current trends in the architectural and systems airport planning and design.

ADE proposes a full immersion of participants within the leading actors on the international scene in their respective fields, particularly with architects, in a direct dialogue with systems design and management experts.

The thematic focus will be concentrated on issues directly linked to the passenger experience, which is related to the third pillar of sustainability, that is the societal challenge; to the economical-financial aspects which are related to the second pillar of sustainability, the economical challenge; and finally to the environment and energy, which are related to the first pillar, the environmental challenge.

The three aspects are interrelated and, in these three areas, methodologies and tools have been developed to support airport development decisional processes regarding planning, design, operation and decommissioning of airports in accordance with European and international regulations.

The terminal concept has been developed in order to increase the airport capacity for passengers, the forecast consist of 25 million per year. The design solution provides to the Airport a new terminal and a new runway. The terminal is connected with a shuttle service to the old one designed by Foster + Partners. The new building is covered by a wavy roof and a continuous glass facade. Roof’s geometry allows the rainwater collection and the photovoltaic system installation in order to reduce future costs of the airport management.

This concept for Lyon airport has been designed by Eleonora Fei, Beatrice Giammarroni and Stella Giannini for the Project Design Management Course held by Prof. Maria Antonietta Esposito at the School of Architecture of the University of Florence. During the course the students confront the dimension of operative integrated design. The target is to acquire project management and production skills, with airport design as the field of application for the theoretical base of knowledge given within the lessons. Students are expected to get a grasp of project technological information management processes aimed towards design, following operative instructions and using suitable methodologies and tools.

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The terminal concept has been developed in order to increase the airport capacity thanks to the construction of a new building. The adopted solution ensure the ordinary functioning of the airport. The idea is to demolished the T3 and design a bigger building connected to Terminal 1. The structure is made of steel bars sustained by the pillars primary structure. Structural steel contains copper ducts for the rainwater collection. The covering system is composed by curved Photovoltaic panels and high resistance glasses.

This concept for Lyon airport has been designed by Federica Mesoraca, Ambra Maramai and Serena Maggi for the Project Design Management Course held by Prof. Maria Antonietta Esposito at the School of Architecture of the University of Florence. During the course the students confront the dimension of operative integrated design. The target is to acquire project management and production skills, with airport design as the field of application for the theoretical base of knowledge given within the lessons. Students are expected to get a grasp of project technological information management processes aimed towards design, following operative instructions and using suitable methodologies and tools.

On December 15th 2015 Elisabetta Fossi held the lecture titled Terminal Life Cycle Costing (LCC) at the School of Architecture of the University of Florence.

This lecture provided to the students of Environmental Project Design Laboratory the first concepts of life cycle thinking with a focus on life cycle costing. The presentation is the early outcome of a PhD research going on in the TxP Research group in Florence.

Given the evolutive design of an airport terminal, life cycle design is crucial. Managing all the aspects of sustainability (economic, environmental, social) is important, in order to achieve an integrated decision-making. Life cycle costing (LCC) is an analysis taking in account all the costs of a building product during its life cycle and not only the initial investiment (construction costs). Then it should be implemented as a tool for airport terminal design management, helping the decision making for the replacement or the renewal of the airport terminal facility.

The ACI Conference on Investing in Airports – Economic Oversight and Regulation, organized by ACI in cooperation with ICAO, will feature sessions and panel discussions dedicated to examining the various airport management models, as well as future challenges and opportunities in the realm of economic oversight and regulation.

The event has been tailored to foster discussion among aviation stakeholders, including airports, airlines, regulators and investors, about the evolution of competition in the sector. In this context, the role and functions of States and regulatory authorities will be addressed to provide a better understanding on the scope, forms and key objectives of economic oversight and regulation with a view toward enhanced connectivity and increasing air transport’s already significant contribution to worldwide economic development. Another important element of the conference will be dedicated to identifying and exploring current and potential opportunities and challenges to attracting the much needed investments required for the sustainable development of the sector.

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Two outstanding experts present their last books on hot trends of industrial design in the event I Tempi del Design. Their ideas are rooted in the florentine Industrial Design academia.
Massimo Ruffilli in his book about Tempo del Design tells the history of such ideas, while Maria Benedetta Spadolini in her book Design for better life shows new research outputs about ageing project design interdiscplinary trends.